The Hand of Vengeance
by Crow's Talon
Summary: Karen Keeny had many regrets in her life. Meeting Gerald Crane was only one of them.


**Disclaimer:** _None of the characters in this story are mine, I am not associated with their owners in any way, and this is a non-profit work of fanfiction. No copyright infringement is intended._

 _ **AN** : This is technically a sidestory to Modes of Distress and is set in its version of Jonathan Crane's past, although it can be read separately. Its purpose is to expand on the character of Karen Keeny and how she arrived at the point she is in during Scarecrow: Year One, and that comic is its main source._

 _ **Trigger Warning** : Domestic violence, referenced child abuse, slut-shaming, and alcohol abuse. Some implied sexual content, but nothing NSFW._

* * *

 _And thine is a face of sweet love in despair,  
And thine is a face of mild sorrow and care,  
And thine is a face of wild terror and fear  
That shall never be quiet till laid on its bier._

 _\- William Blake, Mary_

Karen remembered what her grandmother had said about the Jarvis family, long before she had reached the age where she could marry. She had thoughts on everybody in Arlen, and they were very rarely kind ones. The Griggses looked down their noses at her. The Cranes' waste of a son had driven them almost to poverty. The worst venom, however, was reserved for the closest thing they had to neighbors, the Jarvises. The Jarvises - a father, a mother, two sons, and a daughter - were Gran's mortal enemies.

Mary Keeny hated the Jarvises for many reasons, some clearer than others. They were land-thieves and gold diggers, perched like hungry vultures, waiting for her to die. They had wanted the house for years, she told Karen, for no reason but envy. Not only the house, but whatever money and property the family had left. They wanted it out of greed and spite. Old Man Jarvis (Gran spat out the name) was training his sons to steal the Keenys' land by whatever means it took. But, she would gloat, she had her ways of making sure that old Jarvis and his son wouldn't get a nail from Keeny Manor. God would see to it that Keeny Manor never fell into the hands of the Jarvises.

Karen herself had only seen the oldest Jarvis boy, Charlie, a couple of times in town, a thick sweaty teenager in patched-up overalls and a straw hat to keep out the Georgia sun, always by his father's side. She watched him for a trace of the greed and evil that Gran saw in him. Gran saw evil in everyone, she thought to herself. Old Keeny was a coward and his wife even worse, Marion was a wastrel, the townsfolk shot each other looks as they passed the house by, and the Jarvises were gold-diggers. If there was greed in young Jarvis's eyes, Karen didn't see it. She remembered cringing as she heard Gran confronting the old man, yelling how he'd get her land over her dead body, so help her God. Old Man Jarvis just laughed and clapped his son on the back. Charlie Jarvis didn't say a word.

She honestly preferred living at home with Mother back then. While Marion Keeny had as quick a temper as her mother when Karen made a careless remark, her eyes were less keen than Gran's and she let her daughter get away with things. Marion didn't see evil and hypocrisy everywhere like Gran did. She didn't care about the wretched Cranes and the stuck-up Squires and the land-stealing Jarvises. All she cared about was looks: makeup, powder, nail polish. Karen's first experiments in sin involved stealing some of Marion's eyeliner and lipstick, trying it on in her room. She felt marvelously rebellious, beautiful, and above all alive.

That was when she first started wandering around Arlen after dark. She didn't care about the danger. Her mother's warnings only made the alcohol she tried at the bars taste sweeter. The cigarette smoke was acrid in her lungs and throat at first, but she grew used to them as time passed. She didn't really care for any of the men who romanced her. It was to spite Mother and little more than that. If Marion knew the things she got up to, the alcohol and the smoke, she didn't bother to stop it.

The men she met melted into one another, both faces and personalities. They were tools in her rebellion, nothing more or less. Only one of them stood out to her at all. Gerald Crane. Gerald had what Gran would have called a _reputation_. He was a drunkard, a layabout, a rakehell, trash of the lowest degree. He drove his poor parents mad trying to control him. When he came to Arlen, wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket and scruffy blue jeans, she was genuinely surprised when he called her over at the local bar and asked for her name.

"And who might you be, little lady? Haven't seen your pretty face 'round these parts before, else I'd remember it. Name's Gerald Crane. Judging from your looks, you've heard of me." He laughed, bolstering her confidence.

"Keeny. I'm Karen Keeny."

"Nice name." Gerald winked. "There's something familiar about it." Gerald turned to Karen, his easy smile still there. "Karen Keeny, huh? Say, you ain't the granddaughter of Crazy Mary Keeny, are you?"

Karen could feel herself blush. Gerald leaned back in his wooden chair, holding a lit cigarette. He was handsome in a rough, grizzled way, his hair scraggly and dark. His words were kind - he didn't seem as bad as Marion said he was.

"I bet your mom wouldn't like it if she knew you were talking to me, would she? I'm nothing but street trash. My parents tried to do the same thing to me. Rich, snooty, and boring as hell. I wasn't even allowed to look at girls. One day I couldn't take it anymore, so I started hanging out with my gang instead and learned what life is really like. Never hurt no one, of course. Just wanted to have a good time, y'know? Little fun never hurt nobody."

"So what did your parents do? You don't live at home."

"They kicked me out, of course, but I didn't give a damn. Good riddance, I said. Joined the navy and saw the world. I don't live here in Arlen, see, I'm on leave. Won't be here for long. Just coming home for a week or so. There's a cozy little hotel room I've got on the outskirts of town. Tell ya what, Miss Karen. I like your style." Gerald leaned in with a wink, lowering his voice. "You want advice from me on how to have a good time?"

Karen smiled despite herself, feeling her heart quicken a little. She had more in common with Gerald than she thought - at the very least he looked like he was street-smart. He knew about rebellion. "Sure. Mom would disown me if she saw me with you."

Gerald laughed again, but warmly. "Yeah, well, remember what I said. Don't give a damn. Least of all about what she thinks. She ain't important. Neither is Crazy Keeny."

Karen gave a slightly choked laugh. Usually she didn't feel comfortable telling her boyfriends about her grandmother, but Gerald was so smooth about it that she couldn't help herself. She didn't end up drinking that night for once, since she was too busy talking to Gerald. He was something else. No wonder the rest of her family hated him - he was the opposite of everything they stood for. She could be herself around him.

It was such a relief that she happily accepted when he invited her to his place in Arlen for the night. Marion was furious that she was late home, as Gerald warned would happen, but she took his advice and didn't care.

She slipped out to see him, any chance she got. The yelling and abuse from Marion didn't matter. Only Gerald did. He was always there to offer a sympathetic ear and a coarse piece of wit for the occasion. He loved telling her stories about his life with the Cranes and wild nights with his gang. She was so glad to meet somebody who seemed to really care about her that she went farther with him than she had any of the other men she courted.

On their last night together Gerald told her that he would come back one day and marry her, and together they would leave Arlen, start a family, and the Devil take the Keenys and the Cranes. She only had to wait for him. He would be back soon enough, a few years at most, and they would be happy. His promises were sweet in her ears, and his touch tender for a ruffian. He was different from the other boyfriends. He listened, and he cared - or at least put on a good show of it.

"How do I know you'll remember? You know, to come back?"

Gerald sighed, scratching his head. "What's the matter, honey? You don't trust me?"

"You're a Navy man. You'll meet other women. I'm not stupid."

"What we had was - is - real." He sat up in the bed, an arm around Karen's shoulder. "Y'know, Karen, if ya don't trust me, we can trade photographs. I take a picture of you and give you a picture of me. That way we won't forget. We do it in the Navy all the time. Plenty of us sailors have girlfriends back home."

After he took a picture of Karen in her nightdress, Gerald offered a signed picture from his Navy days in return. They spent the night in his apartment, both of them promising that they would be married, Gerald would settle down, and they'd leave Arlen together, never looking back. They had the pictures, so they wouldn't forget.

Of course, every word he said was a lie.

He packed within the morning, leaving Karen alone and, she realized with horror over the months, pregnant. She couldn't abort it. Gran would throw a fit, and Marion wasn't much better in that regard. Besides, it was Gerald's child from their night together, a reminder of him, possibly the only one she had besides the photograph. Her first idea was to hide the pregnancy, and possibly offer Gerald's baby to somebody who would take better care of it than the Keenys. Then again, no one she knew in Arlen would take him. The Squires and Griggses had families of their own, and Gerald's child would only be a hungry cuckoo to them. Besides, having a child of Keeny blood in his care would give Old Man Jarvis a key to the Keeny Manor.

The next idea was to wait for Gerald to return so they could run away from Arlen with their baby and raise it together away from Gran. This wasn't much more than a fantasy. Even back then, Karen had a suspicion that Gerald wasn't coming back. She kept his photo, but wondered if he had bothered to keep hers or tossed it out to sea.

She only made it for about six months before the pregnancy got so obvious that even someone as self-absorbed as Marion Keeny couldn't ignore it. Marion was furious, of course, and was all too suspicious of where the baby had come from. Before Karen knew it she was in the withered old Keeny Manor, overseen by Crazy Mary Keeny herself. Karen was called a slut, a whore, and other things, too weak and scared to defend herself.

She didn't want to give up the baby to Gran's care, if it could be called that. She had spent enough time around Gran as a child to know how venom-filled and bitter she was. Her hate would poison the baby, if it even lived. But they were older, and made threats to disown her (Marion threatened to kill it outright), so she had no choice. She was barely listening when Gran named the boy "Jonathan". Karen didn't get to name her own son, and she was dragged out of the manor before she could properly meet him.

Karen was outraged and appalled. She planned revenge for herself and her son, knowing exactly what would get on Mom's and especially Gran's nerves the most. Gerald may have been a liar, but he showed her how to really rebel. She wanted to show them that she wasn't a Keeny anymore. It had to be big and final.

Finding a husband wasn't easy. She had a bad reputation among the families Gran would have liked to marry into, and none of the barflies she courted cared much about marriage. Karen didn't care, either. She had someone else in mind. It was a terrible decision in hindsight, but at the time Karen was too angry for herself and her stolen son to think about consequences. She waited until her family wasn't around to stop her.

She married Charlie Jarvis.

He was quick to accept her offer - suspiciously quick, in hindsight - and they were married in a matter of days. None of the Keenys were in attendance at the wedding, of course. Gran was long dead, mourned by no one. When she died a sudden and mysterious death and Jonathan Crane, now a strange, bitter young man, moved north for college, leaving whispers of murder in his trail, Karen still didn't give a damn. Marion was too busy packing to bother even disowning Karen, shoving her mother in the ground and joining Jonathan in the North. She was sure that she would never see either of them again. Now she could start a real family.

Things were all right at first. Charlie, while never the most easygoing man, put on a good show of love, and they had a second child, a daughter this time. He made no secret that he wanted the manor, but the family came first for a while. When he grew increasingly irritable and demanding, Karen began to fear that Gran, for once, was right. Charlie was only kind when it suited him, especially when he was trying to coax Gran's deed out of her. The fake kindness was probably taught by his father - violence seemed more natural to him than sweet talk. He certainly was quick with a strike or a blow, ignoring Karen's pleas that she couldn't give him the will even if she wanted to.

"'Course ya can. You're a Keeny, ain't ya?" he would say with a grunt. "Crazy Keeny's crazy kid's outta town. He ain't comin' back. The house is mine now, and you'll give me the will if it kills ya."

"Please, I don't know where it is. If I did, I'd tell you. Just don't -" It never helped, of course. Charlie never took "no" for an answer.

She would have left, but Charlie had one eye on her like a hawk, and he would tell her how she was poor and unhappy, he picked her up the street a two-bit hussy, and how she should be grateful to _him_. At times she thought about killing him while he slept and fleeing with their daughter, but he hid the gun and locked the door.

It was a year after their daughter's birth when things sunk to their worst. Charlie was at the end of his patience, the last of his easy manner gone, at the point where he was tearing up the floorboards in search of the deed. It didn't take long for him to pull his pistol. He was done with the lies, he said. He wanted the Keeny deed and he wanted it now, or else. Karen couldn't talk him out of it this time. He was ready to take the deed literally over her dead body, and he caught her helpless. She would have grabbed something to try and hit him with and then call the police, but she was pinned.

That was when a second, leaner figure appeared in the doorway, clad in burlap and a witch's hat. He had come, he said, to claim what was rightfully his. His voice was a smooth, fierce hiss. Charlie didn't have a chance. One quick blow from his lighter rival and he was down, a sword in his back. The newcomer turned to Karen, his blazing eyes behind the mask killing her faint hope that he came to help her. It was her he was angry at. Charlie was just in his way.

"Oh, I'm not done yet, mother dear," Jonathan Crane said as he nimbly stepped over the body and took the gun. "Not done at all. We've got years to catch up on. I've only just started."


End file.
